It’s Seppelt week here at AWR central, with a whole brace of Seppelt sample bottles to open up this week. Will endeavour to open at least one every day, so tune out now if you not a fan of the House.

Seppelt Benno Bendigo Shiraz 2006 (Bendigo, Vic)
$45, Screwcap, $14.5%

Not everyone is a fan, but I quite like the Seppelt packaging – simple, elegant, if just a teensy bit boring. Classic regardless. This Shiraz is one of the flagship wines for Seppelt Week (SW for short – acronyms are excellent) even though it doesn’t convince (quite yet)

In the glass it look positively purple – bright & very youthful. The nose is very sweet and juicy, with cherry ripe and Bounty, sweet fruit and oak on the nose – its all small berries and creamy French oak, topped with VA & a bit of mint. The palate though doesn’t quite live up to the lusciousness of the nose – its quite sour, dry and dominated by alcohol, backward and even a bit hard in its profile, with woody oak tannins intruding on the back palate. After a couple of hours in the glass it softens up a shade, but it still has a hardness about it that seems to detract from the drinkability, the alcohol giving it a final bludgering boot on the finish.

So my conclusion here was that this Benno may well emerge as something very fine indeed – the firm structure and briliant colour give hints of that – but at this very point in time its just hard work. Important plus signs on this one.. 16.0++